Projects & Impact

AHP has built its business on applying best practices, many of which we have helped to shape, and real-world, hands-on knowledge to improving systems and business practices for our clients.

In all of the work that we do, we are guided by our mission to improve health and human services systems of care and business operations to help organizations and individuals reach their full potential.

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BHbusiness Plus is funded through a contract with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). It offers customized, virtual technical assistance and training to behavioral health executives at no cost to participants. The goal is to help behavioral health providers identify and implement customized change projects that expand their service capacity, harness new payer sources, and thrive in the changing health care environment. The program empowers participating organizations to actually make quantifiable changes, rather than just learning how to do so. It links participants into specific learning networks that focus on a specific topic of interest and provides opportunities for networking and peer support. Everyone in a learning network receives hands-on expertise and guidance to initiate, continue, and complete business operations changes.

Participants benefit from the following supports:

focused technical assistance that meets each organization’s business needs;

guidance from a dedicated coach that helps participants develop a customized change project;

access to a peer group of like-minded providers that empowers organizations to learn from combined experiences to grow their businesses;

consultation from leading subject matter experts in the field; and

resources designed to be meaningful to learners, providing practical action steps to meet individual challenges.

AHP has contracted with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) on the Recovery to Practice (RTP) workforce initiative to expand and integrate recovery-oriented care delivered by behavioral health providers across systems and service settings by fostering a better understanding of recovery, recovery-oriented practices, and the roles of the various behavioral health professions in promoting recovery.

The RTP initiative aims to address applications and recovery-oriented practices within multidisciplinary services and integrated settings. The contract tasks include redeveloping and expanding the RTP website, creating quarterly newsletters and other resources; providing technical assistance and educational events to help promote and support recovery-oriented approaches in integrated and multidisciplinary settings; creating new training modules on interdisciplinary service approaches and homelessness; and developing decision support resources for clinicians.

In this project, AHP leads a team that includes the Center for Social Innovation and the Foundation for Mental Hygiene, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Center for Practice Innovation at Columbia University.

Key accomplishments of this project include the development and delivery of 12 onsite and 12 virtual technical assistance programs and presentations for diverse audiences of practitioners, administrators, and consumers; the distribution of four magazine style newsletters with practical information on integrating recovery across a variety of topics and practices to a list of more than 6,000 subscribers; the development of a “virtual grand rounds” six-part clinical decision support webinar series that offers real-world training in recovery-oriented practice to clinicians and prescribers; and the creation of two comprehensive training manuals.

Impact:
RTP materials reach a diverse audience of more than 6,800 professionals via email mailing list, and more than 2,300 individuals registered for the virtual technical assistance events that took place in 2015, representing 49 states and the District of Columbia.

Over several contracts, AHP has conducted studies, provided analysis and technical advice, and reviewed CMHS business operations. In addition, AHP writers are the principal speechwriters for the CMHS Office of the Director. Speeches communicate SAMHSA’s vision, mission, and priorities as they relate to development of a person-centered, recovery-focused, evidence-based, quality-driven system of behavioral health care. Staff members also prepare speeches for meetings of national organizations, SAMHSA grantees, peer-run and recovery organizations, national and international policymaking groups, and congressional committees. In addition, staff members draft posts for SAMHSA’s blog.

AHP’s accomplishments in support of the CMHS Office of the Director are both broad and deep. For example, AHP:

wrote a report to Congress on Borderline Personality Disorder;

helped assess the evidence base for the effectiveness of selected behavioral health treatments;

examined states’ priorities vis-a-vis health reform;

reviewed crisis support programs for people with behavioral health conditions;

examined employment of individuals with behavioral health disorders who have criminal justice involvement;

conducted an examination of patient activation for behavioral health;

developed CMHS program profiles;

helped develop materials related to the prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders;

examined the relationship of maternal health and child behavioral health outcomes; and

analyzed the extent to which the landmark Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C. is working for Americans with disabilities, including those with mental and substance use disorders.

In addition, because of AHP’s extensive knowledge and experience in working with SAMHSA over its 20-year history, AHP was tapped to help CMHS developed materials to mark the Agency’s 20th anniversary in 2012.

Impact:
AHP helps SAMHSA articulate its mission, vision, and values to ensure that SAMHSA remains at the forefront of efforts to create person-centered, recovery-focused, evidence-based, quality-driven services for people with mental and substance use conditions.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has contracted with AHP on this national technical assistance and training center, which provides services to Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) and Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) grantees funded through the SAMHSA Minority AIDS Initiative. Through onsite and innovative virtual technical assistance (TA), the BH-HIVTAC provides high-quality services to foster an understanding of the people it serves and support development of integrated services that are culturally and linguistically appropriate for these priority populations and their communities.The goal of this TA and and training is to:

increase integration of behavioral health prevention and treatment services, including HIV and viral hepatitis, and strengthen linkages to primary health care; and

increase capacity for local behavioral health provider networks to develop and expand their substance use prevention and treatment services, particularly those integrating HIV and viral hepatitis prevention services and linkages to primary health care.

AHP’s partners on this initiative are the Altarum Institute and the Danya Institute.

Among the major accomplishments in this project, AHP hosted a two-day virtual conference for 62 SAMHSA/CSAP grantees. Approximately 150 participants (project directors and staff, evaluators, and SAMHSA staff) attended the conference, which included keynote sessions, plenaries, and three concurrent workshops each day. Additional activities in this initiative have included a variety of highly interactive national webinars, site visits, phone consultations, and small learning networks all designed to strengthen and support grantee effectiveness.

Impact:
With an innovative 100% virtual grantee conference designed by AHP staff, BH-HIVTAC was able to reach approximately 150 participants and organize hold eight highly interactive sessions on topics ranging from using social media to integrating mental health care into HIV/AIDS services.